Dennis Doxtater

What, after thirty years of research and teaching in architecture, do I believe in? I somewhat accidentally wandered into social anthropology by being trained for Peace Corps Peru service by applied anthropologists at Cornell University. On my return, a graduate degree in anthropology seemed like the most interesting thing to do; another significant dimension to this orientation was added working part time for landscape architects in Seattle. After becoming licensed in the state of Washington, a choice had to be made. Practice or academic research and teaching? The new D.Arch. degree at Michigan, in conjunction with their anthropology and environmental psychology departments was the route to the latter. Many years have since been spent attempting to persuade architectural students and faculty that cultural dimensions and not unrelated landscape contexts are critical to successful designed settings. In many ways these issues may today be more relevant than ever. Given the tsunami dimensions of contemporary information processes, the design fields must undertake a huge shift in the way we conduct practice. The goal is to more fully understand, document, share, and market that which makes architects most unique, namely the ability to fit human experience to physical settings. Of this, cultural beliefs and values of users form a foundational part. But before we can accomplish this, we must deconstruct our own design subculture and its self-referential means of evaluation, replacing it with inclusive processes of input from the real cultures to be served. The integration of landscape is essential as well. The social and cultural dimensions of the greater natural and urban landscape must always set the initial context for authentic smaller scale interventions. Without these changes, I feel, architecture cannot participate to its potential in the quest for a more sustainable world.

Current Research Topics

Dennis Doxtater is currently researching the positioning of archaeological sites in large-scale contexts of landscape geometry, i.e. "georitual" in the Native American Southwest, on Minoan Crete and in Scandinavia. Before becoming emeritus, he recently taught a specialized design studio using custom software to investigate the symbolic linkage of large-scale landscapes to contemporary architectural settings, e.g. interpretative centers and spiritual settings such as spas, churches, residences, community foci, etc. Also recent was the required professional course in architectural programming, with the goal of understanding five basic human experiences in physical settings: way-finding, task performance, social territories, cultural expression, and visual/non-visual aesthetics.

Published Papers and Reports

• Close mapping of St. Olav’s Pilgrimage path through Gudbrandsdal Norway: probabilities   of a designed, land surveyed concept of a large-scale Christianized landscape. International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

•  Land surveying in early medieval Norway a St Olav pilgrimage path as a means of creating an integrated Christian society in a Viking landscape.pdf

• A Report on Geopattern Software
• Parallel Universes on the Colorado Plateau
• Rethinking the Sacred Landscape
• What visitors do in recreational landscapes (evaluation of five experiences)
• Living in La Paz (post occupancy evaluation)

Unpublished Papers

• Chaco's Place in the Formalized Landscape.pdf
• INTENSION - EXTENSION- prehistoric origins of architectural formalism and application today.pdf
• THE GREAT NORTH ROAD AS ANASAZI ORIGIN RITUAL: Chaco and Totah in context with triadic plateau structures
• Yggdrasil as Map- precedents for a large-scale Eliadian cross structure in prehistoric Scandinavia and probabilities of integration with locations of largest mounds.pdf
• Landscape alignments among 21 natural features and 61 Anasazi great kiva sites on the Southern Colorado Plateau: a comparison with random patterns
• DESIGNING THE “OLMEC FRAME”- sacred surveying of Mesoamerican volcanos, pyramid shaped landscape domains, major site locations, hearth maps and positioning of site features and their orientations.pdf
• MINNESOTA RIVER MATRIX- “non-discursive” alignments of immigrant churchyards on center lines in a New Norwegian Landscape, ca 1870-1900.pdf
• PROBABILITIES OF DESIGNED ALIGNMENTS AMONG LARGEST PREHISTORIC MOUNDS AND MOST PROMINENT NATURAL FEATURES IN SCANDINAVIA – with a comparison to patterns among train stations, campgrounds, and feed stores.pdf
• PROBABILITIES OF DESIGNED LOCATIONS OF CEREMONIAL FOCI- the Chaco meridian, Temple IV at Tikal, and a large-scale sacred Adena river landscape.pdf

Recent Chaired Master’s Thesis

Consideration of Human Behavior in Designing a Green Office Space for Environmentalists: A Simulation Study.  Yasaman Haji Esmaili  (thesis is in two parts)